Class: Fencer
Weapon: Greatsword
Equipment: Heavy mage armor
Role: Mixed-type DPS
This is your spellsword class. Red Mages could use greatswords in FF12 International, and Rune Fencers in FF11 also use greatswords. Awesome job to use an awesome weapon, and a good way to wipe away the travesty that was FF11’s RDM and replace it with the novel ideas of Rune Fencer. Anyway, like all hybrids, stat dilution keeps it from being overpowered, and it needs every stat but DEX in nontrivial portion. The class relies on splitting time between melee and magic to keep damage up; it can nuke like a Thaumaturge, but not for very long – the class ultimately has to drop the nuker act and start swinging a sword at single targets when MP runs short. In exchange, it isn’t a glass cannon, wearing heavy mage armor (new class of armor that would need to be created, but would be re-used by other upcoming jobs). The class can do off-heals, but that is a limited role given only one slot. It’s not that I don’t want the spellsword to heal, but he can’t fulfill the role of sole healer and remain balanced. I’ve deliberately avoided weapon enchantment spells (called “en-spells” in FF parlance) as they are spells that should go a dedicated buffer, not a DD. They would also screw up Mystic Knight something awful. Also, tons of fencing terms inserted because I’m a fencer.
Abilities:
(1) Quick Cut – Delivers an attack with 150 potency.
*(2) Frost – Delivers an attack with 140 potency. Increases all physical damage against the target by 5% for 15 seconds. Cast time: 1.5 seconds. Range: 25 yalms.
*(4) Prise de Fer – For a brief time, lock out the opponent’s weapon with each melee attack, preventing weapon abilities, parrying, or blocking. Duration: 8s. Pacification duration: 5s. Cooldown: 90s. Instant.
(6) Remise – Delivers an attack with 100 potency. Combo: Quick Cut. Combo Potency: 200.
(8) Riposte – Delivers a quick response that briefly stuns opponents. 110 potency, 25-second cooldown. Stun duration: 2 seconds. Instant. Usable only after parrying an attack.
*(10) Restore – Quickly heals a single target for a small amount. Cast time: 0.75 seconds. Cure potency: 250.
(12) Bolt – Delivers an attack with potency of 200. Cast time: 2 seconds. Range: 25 yalms.
(15) Flèche – Launch yourself to your target, delivering an attack with 160 potency. 15 yalm range. 5 yalm minimum range.
(18) In Quartata – Increases evasion dramatically while casting spells. Increases evasion by 35% while casting or channeling. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 60s. Instant.
*(22) Balestra – Delivers a sudden attack that disrupts an opponent’s concentration. Potency: 100. Combo action: Quick Cut. Combo potency: 175. Additional effect: Decreases enemy attack accuracy by 5%. Duration: 10s.
(26) Flame – Delivers a sustained barrage of fire in a line in front of the caster. Potency: 100 per second. Cast time: 3 seconds. Channel time: 10 seconds. Continually drains MP while in use. Can move at 65% movespeed while channeling. Re-use to cancel. Range: 7 yalms.
(30) Redoublement – Delivers an attack with potency of 100. Combo action: Remise. Combo potency: 260.
(34) Disengage – Disengages the opponent’s evasion, striking with a second action. Potency: 80. Instant. Cooldown: 20 seconds. Usable only after a miss, opponent parry, or opponent block.
(38) Icestorm – Calls a wave of icicles from the air and launches them in a cone front of the caster. Range: 6 yalms. Potency: 200. Cast time: 3 seconds.
(42) Stop Cut – Delivers a quick attack that takes advantage of enemy uncertainty. Potency: 80. Combo action: Balestra. Combo potency: 230. Combo bonus: Increases magic damage by 5%. Combo duration: 20 seconds.
*(46) Temper: Increases physical damage by 20%, but inflicts Silence on the caster. Cast time: 3 seconds. Buff duration: 10 seconds. Silence duration: 5 seconds.
(50) Point-in-Line – Extend your weapon at your opponent, daring an attack. All melee-range physical attacks are met with a pre-emptive strike with a potency of 80. Duration: 10 seconds. Cooldown: 120 seconds.
*Denotes cross-class capable.
Traits:
(8) Increased Strength: Increases strength by 4
(14) Brittle Frost: Increases physical damage debuff to 10%.
(16) Increased Intelligence: Increases intelligence by 4
(20) Increased Action Damage I: Increases base action damage by 10%
(24) Increased Vitality: Increases vitality by 4
(28) Quicker Riposte: Reduces cooldown to 15 seconds.
(32) Persistent Restore: Adds a heal-over time effect. Cure potency: 50. Duration: 9 seconds.
(36) Improved Balestra – Increases enemy attack accuracy penalty to 10%.
(40) Increased Action Damage II: Increases base action damage by 20%
(44) Pinpoint Disengage – Adds a damage over time effect to Disengage. Potency: 20. Duration: 12 seconds.
(48) Improved Stop Cut – Increases magic damage bonus to 10%.
Stats:
STR: B-
VIT: B-
DEX: C-
MND: B-
INT: B+
PIE: C+
Balance considerations:
Stat dilution. No Astral Fire buff. Might even be too much not-stepping-on-toes going on here. For all of the huge numbers of bonuses, damage won’t be as high as perhaps it should be. Price you pay for versatility, I guess. A lot of the abilities here are a lot weaker than they may at first seem. Flame deals 1000 potency over 13 seconds, averaging 77 potency per second. Simply mashing your melee combo is 610 potency over 7.5 seconds after skill speed bonuses, resulting in 81.33 potency per second plus autoattacks, which put you around 110-115 potency per second, plus greater burst potency (delivering 610 potency at 4 seconds while the spell has just ticked 200), and chewing up MP. Then compare it to Fire 2, hitting 100 potency per 2.5 seconds + 8.33% action damage (comparatively) + 80% Astral Fire stacks + ~25% superior INT and weapon damage for something around a comparable 97.5 potency per second to more targets. Fire2 will nuke faster in the short and long term, plus the need to hang around to get benefit from Flame, lack of scalability, and requirement for full duration to be of maximum value. Bolt is meant to compete directly with a BLM’s unbuffed Fire/Ice spell – adjust and you’ll see that it comes to just below the BLM’s damage (147.7 to 150 on BLM’s basis). It is also inferior to a Cleric Stance StoneII by a nontrivial margin. With its higher potency, Bolt would be overpowered if it could be cross-classed, but it’s not an issue as long as it stays in-tree – and it does.
Cross-class abilities are chosen for their specific utility. Temper is useful for very few characters– mainly just an ACN who wants to trade his own output for the output of others in parties. It’s a useful buff in burst situations on others, but is really only maximally useful to the Fencer himself, who will ignore the Silence effect and slice away. Frost is the same, being a utility bonus spell for other mages but not doing much damage. Prise de Fer should be interesting to lower-level tanks and solo melee characters, but mages will have little to no use for it as they don’t use much melee, and the short duration and limited effect keeps it from ever dominating. Balestra is usable only by DoW and is a debuff mainly useful again to tanks, reducing enemy accuracy. Frost is just a debuff spell for general use when your FNC isn’t about. Restore is an inefficient cross-class heal that is quicker. It could be used on other healers for quick utility compared to Cure’s slower effect (or as a way to counter the annoying effect of Paralysis in a pinch).
Job: Red Mage
Role: Burst DPS, off-heals
Mainly a pure extension of Fencer, this job uses the classic Doublecast/Dualcast ability to nuke harder and faster. The aim here is to allow you to use more spells faster, but relying on buffers to recover your MP – unlike Thaumaturge, you cannot Transpose to to Umbral Ice to recover your MP. Blitz is extremely high-potency, but comes with a massive MP cost that is doubled in Doublecast (where it would compete with Flare in damage). Doublecast can also be used for burst healing, and Red Mage gets another healing spell as well to keep the tradition alive.
Class changes:
None
Job abilities:
(30): Doublecast – Doubles the potency and MP cost of the next spell. 10-second cooldown.
(35): Insistence – Increases physical damage by 20%, but increases ability TP cost by 25%. Duration: 15s. Cooldown: 60s. Instant.
(40): Restore II – Heals all party members within 6 yalms of target for a moderate amount. Cure potency: 350. Heal over time effect. Cure potency: 50. Duration: 12 seconds. Cast time: 2 seconds.
(45): Blitz – Area-of-effect lightning attack. 200 potency. 5-yalm radius. Damage-over-time effect: 35 potency for 15s. Cast time: 4 seconds. High MP cost.
(50): Refresh – Instantly restores 30% of maximum MP. Increases MP recovery by 50% for 15 seconds. 90-second cooldown. Instant.
Secondary classes:
Thaumaturge (15), Conjurer
Balance considerations:
Main point of comparison is BLM. BLM has higher weapon damage and INT and a net 134% damage bonus in Astral Fire cycles with Umbral Ice in the meantime; RDM has a net 140% damage bonus with Doublecast and uses weaponskills when low on MP. Autoattacks make up the difference in short-term damage for RDM, basically having him meter out damage more with Doublecast and weaponskills while BLM goes balls-to-the-wall nuke-fest. In the long-term, they should be pretty balanced as nukers, with RDM putting out more up-front (Doublecast being an instant boost), BLM overtaking soon after, and the two meeting in the middle during Umbral Ice cycles before BLM accelerates away. BLM ultimately will win by a small margin, but that’s another tradeoff. RDM is more capable with off-healing as well. Like Fencer, RDM isn’t limited by Silence or Pacification effects the way other jobs are and can address physical or magic weakness as needed, making it a valuable member throughout, even if it’s out-nuked by BLM. Versatility, as a Red Mage should always have. Durability is probably a wash, though. RDM has to be closer and suffers for that; BLM can be further but has lower durability. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Since cross-class abilities are limited to THM and CNJ, you can expect precisely nothing new, just limited alternate abilities: no Bloodbath, no Raging Strikes, no Blood for Blood, no Keen Flurry. Reduces all other roles considerably, meaning anything you can’t nuke in short order leaves you better off as the class.
Job: Mystic Knight
Role: Tank
Focus: Magic / Active Tank
Mystic Knight, also called Rune Knight, Rune Fencer, and a few other things enchant weapons with spells to attack. That makes them close-range specialists, and in particular, they will replace all the old spells with instant-cast Sword Magic versions. Additionally, I pulled two classic items from the Mystic Knight inventory: Runic Blade from FF6 (courtesy of Celes) and Barrier, the auto-ability from FF5. Both are made to be relevant here, but the idea is the same. The Mystic Knight is a particularly active tank, and is not passively able to take massive amounts of damage. They rely on properly-timed abilities to bring big hits down to size.
Class changes:
Frost: Replaced with Frozen Blade
Bolt: Replaced with Lightning Blade
Flame: Replaced with Searing Blade
Icestorm: Replaced with Glacial Blade
Job abilities:
(2): Frozen Blade – Delivers an attack with 150 potency. Inflicts 10% weakness to physical damage with 15-second duration. Uses MP.
(12): Lightning Blade – Delivers an attack with 200 potency. Increased enmity. Uses MP.
(26): Searing Blade – Expends 1 Rune Seal to deliver a whirlwind of fire with 180 potency to all nearby opponents. Additional effect: Increased enmity. Range: 5 yalms. Uses MP.
(38): Glacial Blade – Expends 2 Runes Seals to deliver a wave of ice with 280 potency to all targets in a cone. Range: 6 yalms. Uses MP.
(30): Mystic Attunement – Stance. Draws power into mystical runes carved into the sword. Generates 1 Rune Seal every 5 seconds, up to a maximum of 5. Reduces damage delivered by 30%. Increases HP, physical defense, and magic defense by 15%. Increases enmity generated (+100%).
(35): Barrier – Expends 2 Rune Seal to decrease physical damage taken by 50% for 5 seconds. Instant.
(40): Runic Blade – Expends 1 Rune Seal to completely absorb 1 hostile spell. Instant. Stacks up to two times. Lasts for 6 seconds before dissipating.
(45): Empower – Generates 1 Rune Seal. 3.5-second cooldown. Uses a small amount of MP.
(50): Unsealed – Instantly generates 5 Rune Seals. 90 second cooldown.
Secondary classes:
Gladiator (15), Acolyte
Balance considerations:
It’s a tank. It gets increased defense and enmity, but loses a PLD-sized chunk of damage. Nearly abilites are linked to the tank stance, much like WAR; exceptions are the two single-target weapon-spells. PLD is a damage sponge, having a passive -25% damage taken, plus many other abilities to reduce damage (blocking, Rampart, Sentinel, Bulwark, Hallowed Ground, plus Foresight, Bloodbath from MRD). Mystic Knight can hold a reduction of 50% in short bursts, but will lose aggro very quickly that way and has to balance between spell absorption and attack damage reduction. It requires the most management of all tanks, with 4 resources to manage (HP, MP, TP, and Rune Seals all). A well-played MYS should be a hell of a tank, but always teetering on the edge of disaster – mistakes are punished much more harshly than PLD or even WAR. Deliberately intended to be in the difficult-but-awesome category. At the same time, it’s still well-balanced. Steel Cyclone is 200 potency unreduced. Glacial Blade after reduction is effectively 196 potency, for example. Searing Blade deals better damage than Overpower, but costs part of your durability. Lightning Blade is 200 potency per shot for enmity, Butcher’s Block combo is an average of 203.33. WAR gets Berserk and Unchained for damage bursts plus higher passive durability and HP drain. PLD gets passive durability bonuses out the wazoo. MYS relies on active abilities for everything, reducing accuracy and increasing magic damage to hold aggro and blocking powerful enemy nukes in an instant. PLD with Rampart alone is just as durable as MYS with Barrier, and reduces all damage types and not just physical, but PLD gets that for 22.2% of the time while MYS uses it at will (but not all the time).
Originally Posted by mythicrose
(0)
Reply With Quote
